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MINISTRY: ‘PermaWar’ Video Released

“PermaWar”, the first music video from MINISTRY‘s upcoming studio album, “From Beer To Eternity”, can be seen below. The digital single is currently available exclusively in the iTunes store.

The “PermaWar” video is a amalgamation of provocative news images culled from World War Two, Viet Nam, Afghanistan and Iraq, and a bad acid trip. MINISTRY frontman Al Jourgensen is featured in the video portraying three different personalities, representing three different points of view on America’s repetition and persistence of war: the corrupt political leader, the predatory business man, and possibly most dangerous of all, the passive observer.

The “PermaWar” video was shot in July at Jourgensen‘s 13th Planet compound in El Paso, Texas, produced by Angelina Lukacin-Jourgensen and directed by filmmaker/animator Zach Passero whose credits include MINISTRY‘s “Lieslieslies”, “GhoulDiggers” and “99 Percenters”, REVCO‘s “Fire Engine”, and the feature film “Wicked Lake”.

MINISTRY‘s “From Beer To Eternity” is set for a September 10 release (AFM/13th Planet Records), and features the final studio recordings by longtime MINISTRY collaborator guitarist Mike Scaccia.

Sessions for what would become “From Beer To Eternity” began last December at Jourgensen‘s 13th Planet compound in El Paso, Texas, with Jourgensen (who produced the album, composed the music and wrote the lyrics for all 11 songs), guitarists Mike Scaccia and Sin Quirin, drummer Aaron Rossi and bassist Tony Campos. Rough tracks for 18 songs were finished on December 19, and three days later, the 47-year old Scaccia died from a heart attack he suffered onstage while playing a live show with his band RIGOR MORTIS in Dallas, Texas. Jourgensen, Quirin, Rossi and Campos were absolutely devastated.

“We have never, in the history of MINISTRY, ever had a tracking session like that before,” states Jourgensen. “Everything went so smoothly, it was surreal. And Mikey was so on fire and inspired, and really a driving force for this record.”

After returning from Scaccia‘s funeral in Dallas, and shouldering the weight of grief as well as the desire to honor his fallen comrade, Jourgensen locked himself in his studio with his engineer and co-producer Sammy D’Ambruoso for three excruciating months. “There was no choice,” Jourgensen says of the bittersweet production process. “During the tracking sessions, Mikey was smiling and going, ‘You know what, Al? This is by far and away the best MINISTRY album we’ve ever done together. This is awesome.’

“I’m super proud of ‘From Beer To Eternity’, because it’s my tribute to Mikey‘s incredible talent, and I feel it honors him and all of the years we spent together making music.”

From the schizophrenic opening cut, the sarcasm-dripping, sound effect-laden “Hail To His Majesty (Peasants)” to the thrash-punk riffs andbooming bass reverberations of “Punch In The Face”, to “Change Of Luck”, a song that Jourgensen wrote directly about Scaccia‘s death, “From Beer To Eternity” pulls no punches, sounding at once familiar, yet completely fresh and inspired. The release also includes “Side F/X Include Mikey’s Middle Finger / TV4”, which old-school MINISTRY fans will recognize as a continuum in a series of TV songs that began in the mid-1990s, and underscores Scaccia‘s birthright as one of the greatest metal guitarists in the world.